


Magic and Drag Queens and Lizards, Oh My

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Derek Hale, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Communication, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Fluff, Getting Together, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Near Future, Pride, also drag queens, and a lizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-02 19:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16793608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: Stiles does not start his day expecting to end up tracking a bespelled chameleon named Jimmy through the rainbow explosion that is Pride. He especially does not expect to findDerekthere, purple glitter in his hair and an ace of hearts on his t-shirt, but at least it explains why Derek hasn't been answering his texts.





	Magic and Drag Queens and Lizards, Oh My

**Author's Note:**

> the premise for this is utter cracky nonsense, lmao, but it sure was fun to write XD and we all know i had to drop some feels in there, cuz i have way too many ace!Derek feels and i cannot help myself

Stiles pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a slow, controlled breath. The girl across from him opens her mouth but Stiles holds up a hand to forestall the forthcoming apology; the previous fourteen had been plenty, though none of them has actually fixed anything.

“So, Carrie, let me get this straight,” Stiles says evenly. “You were playing around with magic, which you have only been dabbling in for a few weeks. You decided to try out a random spell without knowing what it was going to do. And you decided to do it _on your pet lizard._ Is that right?”

Carrie cringes. “I didn’t think it was actually going to do anything,” she tries again.

“Oh, but it _did,_ ” Stiles points out. “And now there is a magically enlarged, neon bright, color-changing chameleon running loose in the city. Do I have this right?”

“It’s not like he’s dangerous!” Carrie bursts out.

Stiles rolls his eyes, already pulling out his phone. “No,” he allows, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. You _knew_ it was a problem or you wouldn’t have come to me to fix it.”

There may be a small, if growing, subculture of in-the-know youths in Beacon Hills, but that does not mean that the population at large is ready for magic and werewolves and all the related craziness to come careening through town in the form of a giant rainbow lizard. That is definitely something that needs to be taken care of, pronto.

Okay, so from how Carrie tells it, he isn’t really _giant,_ per se. More just on the larger side of average for a chameleon—not that Stiles knows how big the average chameleon is; he was more a snake kid than a lizard kid—but definitely bigger than he was before the spell had gone wrong! Still cause for concern.

And for all Stiles’ irritation, he’s glad that Carrie came to him with this instead of trying to deal with it on her own. She’s a sweet girl, but she’s also not the sharpest crayon in the box, bless her heart. Combine that with knowing fuck-all about the magic she’d be trying to undo and it would be a recipe for disaster. Well, for an even bigger disaster than they already have on their hands. At least Stiles, with his years of apprenticeship with Deaton and all his mystical know-how, can be confident in undoing whatever ridiculous spell Carrie had been attempting without blowing the lizard up or mutating it further.

Stiles shoots a text to Scott about their reptilian mishap—admittedly, this is much lower priority than their last reptilian mishap; he’s at least relatively sure that this one won’t kill anyone—and then huffs out an aggrieved sigh.

“I need to find the magical lizard,” he says, regretting every decision in his life that has brought him to a place where he needs to say that sentence out loud. “Where did you last see it?”

Carrie plops down on Stiles’ dorm bed, scuffing her toes along his splotchy carpet. “Escaping through my window,” she tells him miserably. “My roommate got back from class early and Jimmy got scared.”

Stiles frowns. “And Jimmy is…the roommate?”

“Jimmy’s my chameleon,” Carrie says with a very clear air of _duh._

“Oh, of course he is,” Stiles says because what the hell else is there to say to that? It’s not like he knows the popular naming conventions of pet reptiles these days. Maybe they’ve all got awkwardly normal-sounding people names. “How silly of me. Okay, and what does Jimmy the chameleon usually do when he’s scared?”

Carrie shrugs. “He hides, I guess. Tries to blend in somewhere.”

“It’s gonna be kind of hard for him to blend in now. You said he was stuck in rainbow colors, didn’t you?” Stiles shakes his head. “Not many places to blend in with that.”

Stiles pulls up the pack’s group chat, ready to send out a metaphorical APB on a very conspicuous fugitive, but Carrie says, “Well, there’s the parade,” and he has to stop.

“Parade?”

Carrie looks at him like _he’s_ the idiot here. “Yeah, the parade,” she says. “For Pride? Half of downtown is blocked off for it.”

Cursing, Stiles scrambles to pull up the calendar app on his phone and, yep, there it is. He was totally planning to go this year! It’s the first year he’s been wholly sure of and settled in his bisexual identity enough to want to celebrate it. He’d even considered asking Derek to go with him, if only as a probe to find out if Derek likes men because, for all Stiles’ suspicions and his vested personal interest, he has not yet had confirmation on the matter. But with all his classwork and his internship at the station and the supernatural nonsense the pack got dragged into on a regular basis, it had just slipped his mind.

One glance at the facebook event is all it takes to confirm that, yes, the ongoing Pride festival is a scared magical rainbow chameleon’s paradise. Stiles groans but pulls up the group chat again. His text is met with a volley of confused responses, but most of his packmates agree readily enough to meet him there within the hour. Boyd is on shift and Allison has an exam to study for, but both of those are valid excuses for non-emergency pack activities, so Stiles can forgive them their absence.

The only one who doesn’t respond at all is Derek, and Stiles is far too familiar with Derek’s spotty texting habits to be surprised by that. It can take him hours to reply to the various texts Stiles’ sends him every day. But he _does_ always reply, even to the stupid ones Stiles just sent because he was bored to tears in a long lecture, which is more than can be said for most of Stiles’ packmates. Derek will get back to him on this eventually and he’ll probably be mad that he missed the chance to laugh at Stiles’ weird predicament here.

(Stiles will be mad too; he likes Derek’s laugh a lot, even when it’s directed at him.)

He tucks his phone back into his pocket with a heavy sigh. Carrie is biting her lip, still looking caught between penitent and worried.

“We’re going to find him,” Stiles tells her, aiming for reassuring because he’s not completely insensitive. “I’ll put him back to normal and bring him right back, I promise.”

Carrie gives him a weak smile. “You’re the best, Stiles.”

She insists on hugging him before she leaves, and Stiles awkwardly pats her on the back and then shuts the door firmly behind her with relief. He stands alone in his room for a moment, mind whirring through all the possible outcomes here. Then he glances at himself and his dingy khakis.

He’s got some time before he needs to leave. And if he’s going to Pride after all, he might as well dress to represent.

* * *

Pride is a huge, loud, overwhelming thing.

Stiles _loves it._

Everywhere he looks there are people laughing, paint on their faces and flags in their hands, and he’s seen at least five people in drag in the three minutes he’s been here. Four other people dressed up in blue, pink, and purple have already come up to high-five Stiles in bi solidarity. One of them stuck a heart-shaped sticker on his cheek and shook her feather boa at him before dancing back off into the crowd.

Stiles cannot believe he was going to miss this. He also has no fucking idea how he’s going to track down one measly lizard in all this glorious chaos.

Scott is obviously thinking the same thing, standing beside him and looking out over the street crowded with booths and vendors and people with this dazed look on his face, though that might also have been a bit of sensory overload.

He says, “Do we even really _need_ to find it? Maybe it’ll just go home on its own and no will notice and it’ll all be fine.”

Stiles thinks back to the last time they hoped nobody would notice something. It had resulted in four police reports filed and one utterly hysterical woman convinced that the apocalypse was nigh. He grimaces and says, “You really wanna take that risk, Scottie?”

Scott sighs, looking pained. “No. This is gonna suck though.” He types out a text anyway and says, “We’ll start here and work our way east. Erica and Isaac will start on the other side and meet us in the middle. Lydia’s coming from the north side of town, so she and Jackson can work their way south from there.”

Stiles nibbles on his thumbnail and asks, as nonchalantly as he can manage, “You heard anything from Derek?”

Scott eyes Stiles sidelong, unconvinced and maybe smirking a little bit, but just tucks his phone away with a shrug. “Not yet. He might be working. His freelance schedule is always so weird, I can never keep track of it. He’ll probably turn up eventually.”

Before Scott can do anything else, like stop pretending he doesn’t know exactly how gone Stiles is on Derek, a man in very tight, very sparkly shorts dances by, clearly already shitfaced despite it being three o’clock in the afternoon. Stiles eyes the beer in his hands with the utmost wistfulness. Sadly, he needs to keep his wits about him if he’s going to be playing the world’s hardest game of I-Spy, so no drinking for him.

Scott pats him on the shoulder. “Come on, bro.”

With one more longing glance at the alcohol, Stiles lets himself get dragged into the throng.

* * *

This is _impossible._ There are rainbows on every fucking surface in sight, except for the surfaces covered in all the other pride flags. The whole festival is a goddamn _explosion_ of color and there is no way in hell that Stiles and his friends are going to be able to pick out one colorful lizard, no matter how abnormally big it is.

Stiles says as much and Scott groans in frustration. He’s somehow acquired a pansexual flag in the last hour, and the colors have gotten painted onto his cheek as well (Stiles isn’t sure how he missed that happening), but he’s still got a careful eye out on their surroundings like the good and attentive alpha he is. He looks like he wants to tear his hair out, though, which is a sentiment Stiles sympathizes with completely.

“Well, you’re never gonna find anything with _that_ attitude.”

Stiles whirls around to find Erica directly behind him, white teeth bared in a particularly sharp-looking smile. In a red corset top and sky-high heels, she fits right in with the drag queen aesthetic, even as the only true straight person in the pack. Isaac beside her is rolling his eyes like he’s too cool to be here, but the enby pin on his shirt puts the lie to his attitude.

“Have you guys seen anything?” Scott asks eagerly (and a little bit desperately).

“Only a whole lot of ass-shaking,” Erica tells him with a wink and a leer. “There was a twerking contest up on 5th.”

“No weird lizard,” Isaac tells them. “Besides Jackson, I mean. We ran into him and Lydia a block back. They haven’t seen it either.”

Despite the bad news, Stiles snickers, imagining how pissy Jackson would get at being referred to like that. Scott elbows him in the ribs and tries to look stern, but he’d be a damn liar to claim he doesn’t think it’s funny too and he knows Stiles is not afraid to call him out on it, so he doesn’t say anything.

Isaac ignores them both, as per usual. “As much fun as this is,” he says dryly, “all the noise and the scents are giving me a headache. Stiles, isn’t there something you can do? Some spell to track it?”

Stiles makes a face at him. “If I knew how to find it with magic, don’t you think I would’ve done that by now? Unfortunately, no, I don’t have any spells in my repertoire for locating wayward mutant lizards. Deaton’s books don’t get that specific.”

“But you do have one for locating magical disturbances and hotspots,” Erica puts in with a thoughtful tilt to her head. “Don’t you?”

Scott perks up. “Like the one you used to find that witch who was causing trouble out in the preserve a few months ago,” he says. “You did something that let you sense abnormally high concentrations of magic. Would that work here?”

His tone says _“please tell me that would work here”_ but Stiles scratches at the back of his neck.

“I don’t know, guys. I’m not sure what Carrie did is big enough to ping a spell like that. And even if it does—” He waves a hand at the hundreds of festival-goers packed in around them. “—with this many people all in one place, I can guarantee it won’t be the only thing.”

“It would still give us a place to start,” Isaac argues. “Instead of wandering blind or waiting for someone else to find it and start screaming.”

Scott turns to Stiles with his most convincing pleading face on and Stiles has never in his life been able to resist that. He puts his hand on Scott’s face and shoves him away, ignoring the way Scott just laughs because he knows he’s won.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “I’ll do the freaking spell. But if I end up with a dozen hotspots to investigate, you two are checking out at least eight of them.”

Erica and Isaac don’t look particularly threatened, but when do they ever? Stiles shakes out his hands, mentally reviewing the words to the spell he needs, and hopes this works. If they can find this damn lizard and get it fixed quickly, then maybe Stiles will have the time to actually _enjoy_ his first Pride.

* * *

He does not find a dozen hotspots. He finds seventeen, and he curses every hypothetical deity he can think of. Why do queer people and witches have to overlap so much, he thinks to himself in full awareness of his own participation in that particular statistic. He also swears to himself that he’s going to team up with Carrie for the next group project in Econ and then make her do all the work herself, but then he remembers that he wants to actually _pass_ that class, and he grumpily retires the idea.

He and Scott send Isaac and Erica off to check out the farthest magical concentrations Stiles can sense, which Erica pouts about, but it was her idea to wear the scary heels to an outdoor celebration that spans eight city blocks, so Stiles doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for her. Scott texts Lydia to send her and Jackson after a few more that are closer to their current location, which leaves six for him and Stiles.

At least it’s not boring. This could’ve been a tedious slog, in other circumstances, but Pride seems to have events and performances and activities on every corner. They pass that twerking contest that Erica mentioned, now on its fourth round, and Scott has to drag Stiles away because, _damn,_ those are some fine asses up there. There’s a string of fabulous drag queens on a big stage, fake-belting their hearts out in a pretty fantastic show of lip-syncing skills. Some kind of pageant is going on with a bunch of people in _outrageous_ outfits, all sequins and feathers and headdresses.

Once, Stiles _swears_ he catches sight of something lizard-shaped in amongst all that craziness, but when he looks again, he finds that it was just part of someone’s incredibly elaborate headpiece. Honestly, how does she keep that thing on her head without breaking her neck? He’s impressed.

Turns out, one of the magical hotspots is two witches running a beverage stand with spelled cups to help prevent roofies, which are as a big a problem among queer people as they are among straight ones, apparently. Stiles and Scott both fully respect their efforts and let them go on about their business unhindered.

Three hotspots are glamour spells people put on themselves in the hopes of getting laid, which Stiles doesn’t respect much, but they’re not strong enough to actually compel anyone so they’re not doing any harm. Stiles gives them the stink-eye and leaves them alone.

One hotspot is a dude performing magic tricks for a small crowd, hat laid out for tips. They’re _real_ magic, but at least they’re simple and subtle, and none of the spectators look skeptical enough to be questioning whether or not they’re just _tricks._ Stiles lingers there for a few minutes just to make sure this guy isn’t going to be stupid about his little scheme and need cleaning up after—his dad never appreciates the lying involved in making hysterical claims about legitimate magic or monsters go away—but he lets Scott pull him away before too long.

It’s almost five by the time they make it down to one last spot to check out. The others haven’t found anything more exciting than they have, and there’s still been no sign of that stupid fucking lizard. Stiles is starting to think it went right back home after its jaunt out the window and is snuggled up with Carrie in her dorm, safe and sound and undetected, and Carrie just didn’t think to call him about it.

The actual parade itself is long since come and gone—Stiles hadn’t needed Scott’s fancy werewolf ears to hear the hoopla from two streets over—but there’s still plenty of partying going on. Judging by the barrage of facebook event invitations, it’s guaranteed to go on all night and spill over into any number of clubs and bars once it gets too late to be out on the street.

They’ve got a while before the festival itself closes down, though, and only one more hotspot to look in on. If it turns out to be nothing like all the rest, then Stiles is going to have to throw in the towel, call Carrie to tell her that her precious Jimmy is nowhere to be found, and hope his dad doesn’t wave another bizarre police report in his face the next time he sets foot in the station.

And Derek still hasn’t texted Stiles back. It’s been nearly four hours and Stiles is starting to get a little worried that he hasn’t heard from him. Scott doesn’t seem concerned, though, and he looks at Stiles a little funny when he mentions the texting thing.

“Derek rarely bothers to text _me_ back,” he says. “Or anyone, really. Unless we ask a direct question or it’s an emergency or something. He hates texting; he’d rather just call.”

Stiles flushes a little bit at the thought that it might be just him, that he might be the only one Derek will put up with texting for. But that still doesn’t explain why he hasn’t responded to anything in the group text. Even if it’s clearly a low priority type of crisis, he should have at least acknowledged it by now, right? How busy can he be to not even check his messages?

“Just one more,” Scott says bracingly, though he’s obviously more than ready to be done too. “One more, and then if you’re still worried, we can go by Derek’s loft and make sure he’s not kidnapped again.”

Stiles huffs. “Oh yeah, because _that_ makes me less worried, thanks.”

He leads the way forward regardless, following the last intangible thread of the spell toward what might be the only side street they haven’t been down yet. It’s a bit quieter, but considering what it’s being compared to, that’s not saying much. There’s still loud music being pumped through huge speakers, plenty of booze to be had, revelers packed around the booths lining the sidewalks.

These ones seem to be of the more educational variety, Stiles notices, for some of the less mainstream queer identities. Even he doesn’t recognize some of these flags and he’s spent a lot of time in the queer student union in the last year or two, so clearly he needs to start paying more attention. He’s just squinting at the nearest booth—lots of really pale green in there, not sure what that’s for—when Scott smacks him with the back of his hand.

Stiles _oofs_ and sends him a dirty look, rubbing at his sore chest, and says, “Jeez, what?”

“I think I figured out why Derek’s been out of contact all day.”

Frowning, Stiles follows Scott’s pointing finger toward a booth a ways further down the street, all decked out in purple and manned by a handful of people wearing the same. In front of it, leaning against the table with his feet kicked out in front of him, is Derek. He has purple glitter in his hair and a graphic t-shirt with a big ace of hearts on it, also purple. He’s talking to another of those drag queens with the enormous headdresses, and she’s apparently really funny because his head is thrown back in the kind of open laugh that the pack has only started hearing from him in the last few years.

That laugh makes Stiles’ heart skip a beat even from a distance. He hopes Scott doesn’t notice, but he’s resigned himself to being painfully obvious about his crushes, if only to his best friend. (He sure _hopes_ it’s only to his best friend. Derek’s never seemed to realize, at least, so he can’t be broadcasting _that_ much.)

As he watches, an awkward teenager slinks up to the booth. Derek smiles at him—big, bright, beautiful smile, also relatively new—and hands him some kind of pamphlet, and that’s when Stiles fully registers Derek’s getup and his position and what it all translates to. He’s honestly not quite sure if he’s surprised, but he doesn’t have time to decide because Scott has him by the arm and is already dragging him forward.

It’s not until they’re almost upon the booth that Stiles realizes they’re still following the thread of the spell in the right direction. He gives it a little tug and finds his eyes drawn to the queen, up and up to the headpiece. It looks like mostly wig, all curled up and hairsprayed to high heaven, with a bunch of ornamental additions like fake fruit and what might be fancy table centerpieces. And there, half-hidden in the blue/yellow/orange/green depths of it all, is one beady, weirdly shaped, reptilian eyeball staring back at him.

_Bingo, baby!_

Stiles puts the brakes on, dragging a very confused Scott to a halt. Scott starts to ask what the hell but Stiles shushes him hurriedly before they can attract the queen’s attention; they do not want to alert her or anyone else to the very-much-not-the-centerpiece-it’s-pretending-to-be magical lizard hiding in her hair. That would would be extremely hard to explain. Only now the question is how to get it _out_ without her noticing.

Fuck, when did Stiles’ life end up this weird?

They’re too close to get out of dodge now. Even with the rather pungent crowd around them, Derek’s born werewolf nose is going to pick up their scents soon, and that’s if he doesn’t just turn ever so slightly to the right and see them literally _right there._ There would be no way to communicate a plan to him before his shifted attention alerts his friend, and they’ll never get a hold of Jimmy without raising questions if that happens.

That leaves only one option: distraction.

It takes three seconds of vague but emphatic hand signals to let Scott know the part he’s got to play and Stiles blesses all those years of playing make-believe spy games for giving them a sign language all their own that has stood the test of time so well. Even three seconds is almost too long, though, because as soon as Scott has stepped back to fade into the crowd a bit, Derek has his nose scrunched up and is already turning toward them.

Stiles throws himself forward, landing with an arm around Derek’s shoulders. Derek looks startled and a little bit confused, but he doesn’t protest or shove Stiles off either. Stiles considers that a success, especially because it means the drag queen stays facing their direction where she can’t see Scott lurking behind her.

Derek, on the other hand, most definitely _does_ see Scott. It does nothing to lessen his confusion, nor does the finger Scott puts to his lips or the way Scott points to the headpiece.

Stiles gives Derek a distracting shake.

“Hey!” he says, drawing it out to a truly obnoxious degree. “Derek, my main man. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Derek blinks at Scott a few more times but finally seems to catch on that, for whatever indecipherable reason, he’s not supposed to draw attention to him. The queen is eyeing them both curiously. Derek turns back to Stiles.

“I could say the same thing,” he says. “I didn’t think anyone else had plans to come to this.”

“If we’d known you were coming, maybe we would’ve,” Stiles counters; he, at least, definitely would have made time in his busy schedule to attend for real if he had known Derek was going to be here. Derek’s presence always makes Stiles’ attendance ten times more likely. “And what are you, manning a booth? That’s so fancy and official. I didn’t even know you were—” He waves a hand in an upward direction, toward the banner above them calling for asexual visibility and education. “We’ve been friends for years, dude! How did I not know that?”

Derek’s cheeks go pink beneath his scruff. “You didn’t ask,” he points out. “And it never came up in casual conversation. Besides, it’s sort of…new,” he adds with an awkward little shrug.

Stiles can’t help but laugh at that, just a bit. He’s intimately familiar with that particular awkwardness, having worn it himself for months after his own identity crisis. The first few times he had introduced himself to someone as bisexual it had come out with a hitch of hesitation, or maybe fear, and a competing thrill of accomplishment, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be proud of this yet even though he wanted to be.

Derek has that same hesitation all over his face, eyeing Stiles carefully, muscles tense under Stiles’ fingers. Awaiting judgment, Stiles realizes. Looking for his reaction. Because his reaction _matters_ to Derek.

That dries up his laugh pretty quick, even if it hadn’t been a bad one. Instead, Stiles tightens his hold on Derek into something approaching a side-hug and says, “Well, purple’s a good color on you.”

The smile he gets in return makes Stiles’ heart go a little haywire and, damn it, Derek’s _got_ to hear that. So much for not broadcasting his feelings. Shit, he needs a distraction from his distraction. He goes for the hair, rubbing at Derek’s head and raining a purple cloud of glitter down all over the both of them until Derek makes indignant noises and slaps his hands away.

“Aw, aren’t you two just adorable,” the queen coos. “Derek, honey, is this that cute boy you’ve been telling me about?”

Derek chokes like he’s just inhaled a lungful of glitter. Stiles is pretty sure _he’s_ the one red in the face now because Derek _does not say she’s wrong._ He trains the full force of his impressive glare on the queen, once his coughing dies down, and growls out, “Ritzy, don’t you have somewhere else to be right now?”

Ritzy takes his glare in stride and sends back a wholly unimpressed look of her own, complete with one drawn-on eyebrow arched all the way to her wig-line.

“I got a lot of places I _could_ be,” she says archly.

“Don’t be late, then.”

Derek jerks his head to the side in an obvious cue for her to disappear. Ritzy, instead of looking insulted at the dismissal, laughs like she thinks Derek is the cutest little thing instead of a very large and muscular man with a scowl fit to melt steel. The motion of it makes her wig wobble. It’s too securely attached to be in danger of falling, but the sway of it still covers a pretty impressive distance, and also nearly knocks Scott off his feet. He had tiptoed in close and was just reaching up to make first contact with Jimmy.

Now Scott stumbles back and almost falls on his ass to avoid getting hit with a fake banana. Stiles _desperately_ wants to laugh because the exaggerated grimace on Scott’s face as he waits to see if he wasn’t quiet enough in his falling over is the funniest thing he’s seen in a year, but he clamps down on it. He also clamps down on Derek’s shoulder as a warning to him not to react. Not that he needs to worry about that; Derek’s poker face is legendary.

Ritzy, unsuspecting, throws them both a wink and says, “I guess I’ll be seeing you boys around.”

Wait, she’s actually leaving. _Shit._

Spurred on by Scott’s alarmed flailing, Stiles abandons his hold on Derek to slide in front of Ritzy before she can turn all the way around. She looks him over head to toe, part curious and part judgmental, and Stiles casts around for something to say to keep her here a bit longer.

“Uh, what’s this about a cute boy?” is what he comes out with, and he does not need to see Scott’s face-palm or Derek’s dagger-eyes to know that wasn’t his best moment. It _is_ an honest question, though, if a bit transparent. Or desperate, or pathetic, he’s not quite sure which. Depends on the answer.

Ritzy turns back to send another look at Derek—wig swinging, Scott chasing after it like a cat with a string except much more annoyed—and the one he sends back is positively murderous. Apparently she decides to prioritize her life over the opportunity to embarrass him further because she doesn’t immediately spill all his secrets at Stiles’ feet.

“If you’ll excuse me, honey,” she says, “I do actually have somewhere to be.”

“Is it one of those contests?” Stiles tries. “We— _I_ passed a couple of those on the way over here. If it’s not, then it should be. I mean, _wow!_ ”

Stiles gestures expansively at her getup. Ritzy preens, smoothing the wrinkles from her long skirt and primping a few of her curls. Scott is closing in again. He looks like he might be whispering to the lizard, which is a little weird, but, hey, if it works, then it works. And Stiles really hopes it works fast because Derek is rubbing at his forehead now and they’re going to have a lot of questions to answer soon.

“Seriously,” Stiles goes on, figuring he might as well lay it on thick. “You look fantastic! Did you make all this yourself? I bet you did. You look like a crafty gal.”

“You’re sweet,” Ritzy says. Her eyes narrow—or Stiles thinks they do, at least. It’s sort of hard to tell with the over-sized fake eyelashes. “Pretty, too,” she adds. “You ever thought of getting into the scene?”

“Getting into the—”

Stiles almost swallows his tongue when he realizes what she means.

“Oh god, no!” he splutters, complete with head shaking and hands waving and probably some very unflattering facial expressions. “No, that’s— I’ve never— Not that it’s not worth doing!” he hurries to add. “I mean, it’s super cool and awesome and everything, I just haven’t—”

Derek’s shoulders are shaking and, though he’s got his face buried in his hands now, it’s obvious that he’s having a good chuckle at Stiles’ panicked rambling. Stiles is glad _someone’s_ enjoying it because _he_ is about ready to make a break for it, maybe run up into the hills and become a llama-herder so that he will never have to finish this conversation, or face another human being ever again.

Except that Scott has one hand wrist-deep in the wig and is frantically waving his other hand for Stiles to keep going. Stiles can even see a bright red scaly tail just poking out to wrap around Scott’s arm.

He changes direction again.

“But you know what? There’s never a bad time to try new things!” Stiles holds his arms out wide, shrugging with his whole body. “I have never done drag before, but I _could!_ Maybe it’s time for me to expand my horizons, broaden my experiences, deepen my understanding of a rich and historically significant culture. Besides, you ladies always look like you’re having fun! Who knows, maybe I’ll give it a try.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Derek cuts in, not even bothering to look up from his hands at the trainwreck before him. “Please don’t do that. You would break an ankle in those heels, Stiles, and you know it.”

“Maybe,” Stiles allows, “but I bet they would make my ass look _great_ right up until the very end.”

Ritzy pops her tongue loudly— _good god,_ how did she make it that loud?—and says, “Baby, you know that’s right!”

Then she does this thing, a sort of lean back and dip to the side combo. Whatever it is, it sends her right into Scott. Jimmy, formerly in the process of admitting defeat and crawling into Scott’s arms, goes _flying_ as Scott loses his balance completely. Only Derek’s quick reflexes keep that poor rainbow lizard from going splat on the pavement, and the utter bewilderment on his face over what he now has in his hands is priceless.

Ritzy, thank the lord and saints be praised, doesn’t notice the lizard _or_ Derek’s reaction to it. Her full attention is on Scott, who stares up at her from his sprawl with all the innocence he can muster, obviously waiting for beratements. Instead, Ritzy primly tugs her askew hairpiece back into its proper place, peers down at him, and says, “Honey, I hope you know, when we talk about our wigs getting snatched, we don’t usually mean it _literally._ ”

Scott grimaces. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I…tripped?”

It’s not all that convincing, but it’s a better explanation than the truth, and a lot more believable. Just out of eyeline, Derek is holding up the lizard in Stiles’ direction, mouthing soundlessly like he doesn’t even have the words to ask what the fuck is going on, but his eyebrows communicate his bafflement just fine. Stiles flaps a hand at him. It earns him an enormous eye roll, but Derek turns away with Jimmy anyway, sliding around the table into the booth, so Stiles thinks he got the message.

Whether Ritzy believes Scott’s tripping excuse or not, she must decide it’s not worth making a fuss over. She pats down her wig another time, making sure nothing—that she knows of—has been irreparably dislodged, and gives herself a shake. By the time she glances back over her shoulder, Jimmy is nowhere to be seen and Derek’s got his poker face firmly in place.

“I’ll catch you later, honey,” she tells him. “Next meeting’s on Wednesday.”

A small smile breaks through. “I’ll be there.”

Ritzy gives Scott the stink-eye as she steps over his leg, but she struts down the street without a backward glance. As soon as she is out of earshot, Stiles lets out a sigh big enough to deflate his entire body. So does Scott, but he readily catches hold of Stiles’ hand when it’s offered and lets himself be hauled onto his feet.

“Remind me again why _I_ always have to be the one to do the weird stuff?” he grumbles.

Stiles claps him on the shoulder. “Because you’re the stealthy one with the wolfy reflexes who knows how to handle animals,” he says. “I’m just naturally distracting. Leave the fast-talking to me, buddy.”

“You almost fast-talked your way into a pair of high heels,” Scott points out with a laugh.

“And I stand by what I said,” Stiles says staunchly. “My ass would look great.”

“And you’d still be _on_ your ass in under a minute,” Derek reiterates. “Now can someone please take a moment to tell me why I have a giant purple chameleon trying to climb up my leg?”

While Scott hurries into the booth to retrieve Jimmy, Stiles leans up against the table and says, “You know, if you checked your text messages once in a while, you wouldn’t need to ask that question.”

Derek pulls out his phone like he forgot he even had one. He obviously finds the group text with the lowdown on the lizard situation because he shrugs to concede the point. “I’ve been a little busy.”

“Busy running an official booth at Pride.”

Derek glances up at Stiles and then promptly returns his attention to the chameleon stubbornly attached to his thigh and Scott trying to coax it off with soothing promises of yummy crickets or whatever the hell chameleons eat.

“I’m not really _running_ it,” he says. “I’m only manning it alone while Keith and Jenna are busy with the parade cleanup. They should be back to take over in a few minutes.”

Stiles shifts forward to lean over the table, fingers tapping at the surface. “So you’ll, uh…you’ll be free after that?”

“Probably,” Derek says absently, reaching down to help Scott pry the last of Jimmy’s clingy little hands off his pant leg. “Things are winding down. They shouldn’t need three people to hold down the fort now that the parade’s over and most people are—”

There must be some kind of look Stiles’ face because Derek trails off when he catches sight of it, mouth still open around his last word. His eyebrows inch up just a bit. He licks his lips.

“Yeah,” he says. “I should— I mean, yes. Why?”

Before Stiles can ask the question he has been dying to ask for ages now, Scott lets out a whoop of triumph and arises with Jimmy settled across his shoulders like a scaly scarf. He beams at them both, back and forth for the whole two seconds it takes for him to recognize the awkwardness of a moment interrupted. Then he starts looking like he wishes _he_ were the chameleon so he could fade into the background and disappear.

Jimmy, on the other hand, just fixes one weird little eye on Stiles.

Stiles gives him a dirty look right back. “What’re you looking at, pal? You’re the one causing all the trouble around here.”

Jimmy blinks slowly. _Unrepentantly._

“You might want to do something about him before someone notices.” Derek glances around at the nearest festival-goers, hovering a few feet away to examine the pins on display at the booth next door.

It takes less than a minute and a handful of mumbled words to have Jimmy letting out a weird hissing noise like a deflating balloon. The mottled red and blue and orange of his scales morphs back into something less eye-catching, thank god, and much closer to a natural patterning. When his weird, grabby, two-fingered hand on Scott’s shoulder shrinks down to a reasonable size, Stiles pronounces him restored to factory settings.

“Crisis averted!” he declares. “Now to call Carrie so she can get her ass over here and get the little bastard out of my sight.”

“ _Or,_ ” Scott interjects with another of those terribly innocent looks on his face, “I can deliver him.”

Stiles frowns at him. “Oh really? Scott, it’s halfway across town. Not to mention, we rode in together. You don’t have your own car.”

“No, but Isaac does! He wants to leave—” Scott’s eyes dart from Stiles to Derek, very unsubtly. “—and you want to stay.” He shrugs. “Dropping off Jimmy on our way home will save Carrie a trip, and it won’t be too much of a hassle. Will it, boy?”

Scott gives Jimmy a pat on the head. Jimmy reaches out and takes hold of Scott’s finger, effectively preventing any further contact. Scott just keeps on smiling like the incorrigible animal-loving nerd that he is. As much as he bitched about this whole endeavor, now he looks one step away from stealing Jimmy and taking the poor lizard home himself, Carrie be damned.

Stiles cuts another look in Derek’s direction. Derek has busied himself with straightening out the various merchandise and promotional material scattered across the table, apparently unconcerned. Except that the pamphlets are already perfectly in line and Derek is actually knocking them askew so that he can set them right again, which means he obviously _does_ care and just doesn’t want to _look_ like it.

“Sure, Scottie, that’d be great. You’re the best, man. I owe you one.”

Stiles claps Scott on the shoulder, jostling the lizard perched there and earning himself an ineffective swipe of a very slow hand, and used his new grip to start steering Scott toward the main street.

Scott winks at him and whispers back, “Please, you owe me _two,_ at least.”

Fighting a blush, Stiles gives him one more shove onward and says, “Your reward is completely dependent on how well this goes. Now, _shoo._ ”

Leaving Scott and Jimmy to laugh themselves all the way to the parking lot, Stiles turns back to the booth to find Derek talking to an older woman with a purple scrunchie and a clipboard. Jenna, Stiles presumes, and Keith is probably the very tall man with the tattoos sliding into the booth to take Derek’s place.

Stiles hangs back a ways, chewing on a thumbnail while he waits. Sure enough, a moment later Derek is shaking Jenna’s hand and throwing Keith a wave and a smile, clearly relieved of his booth-watching duties. He spots Stiles as soon as he’s out and ambles over to him with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

“You waited.”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles says. “That was kind of the point, wasn’t it?”

Derek looks at him for a minute, not quite intensely enough to feel like an examination but still enough to make him squirm. Then he ducks his head.

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I guess it is. Lead the way.”

Finally free to roam unencumbered by magical shenanigans, Stiles wends his way back toward the main strip with Derek at his side. He takes Derek to see the street magician with real magic, muttering fun facts about the spells under his breath so that only Derek can hear. Derek laughs when he a quick spell of Stiles’ own turns one of the playing cards into a Starbucks discount punch-card halfway through a trick and the magician drops the whole deck in surprise.

He’s still chuckling about it when a lesbian couple all decked out in pink from head to toe politely request that Derek take their picture for them. He obliges, though he leaves the “say cheese” bit to Stiles. Satisfied with their photo, one of the girls offers to take their picture in return. Derek starts to wave them off, but Stiles socks him in the arm and hands his phone over with the camera app already open.

Derek’s arm comes up around Stiles’ waist after only a second of hesitation, and Stiles has to restrain himself from pushing in closer. Luckily, it doesn’t show in the photo just how much Stiles wants to climb into Derek’s arms and stay there. At least, he thinks it doesn’t. Derek studies it long enough to make Stiles worry and and also check his teeth for green things he might’ve missed.

It isn’t until Stiles has bought them both drinks—from those nice witches with the bespelled cups, still doing their good work—that Derek blurts out, “Is this what it feels like it is?”

Stiles has to swallow a mouthful of surprisingly decent beer before he can ask, “What _this?_ ” although he’s pretty sure he already knows.

“All of this,” Derek says, holding up the drink Stiles had paid for and pressed into his hand, gesturing expansively with the other. “You and me, here, just the two of us. It just sort of feels like—”

Like a date. He doesn’t say that much out loud, but he doesn’t have to, not when Stiles has sort of forgotten that this _isn’t._

Stiles tightens his hold on his own drink and scuffs the toe of his shoe against the concrete. He has to clear his throat before he can make himself say, “I don’t know. Do you want it to be?”

“Do _you?_ ”

As if it isn’t painfully obvious. “Maybe.”

“Even with the…” Derek plucks at the front of his t-shirt, right over the ace of hearts design.

Stiles frowns. “Derek, you’ve been wearing that this whole time,” he points out. “You were literally in a booth dedicated to asexuality when I proposed this little jaunt. Would I have asked you to come with me at all if I had a problem with it?”

“Just because you support it in a general sense doesn’t necessarily mean you want to date it.”

That would sting a whole hell of a lot if Derek wasn’t curled in on himself, shoulders high and tense. Most of the glitter has been shaken loose from his hair by now, but there’s a dusting across his forehead, flecks of it glittering in his eyelashes and his beard. Even if he’s still decked out in his pride colors, the confidence Derek showed earlier is gone. He’s obviously bracing himself for rejection and it hurts Stiles to see it.

“Well, I _do._ ”

Stiles says it with as much conviction as he can muster up, enough to make Derek take notice. He stands his ground against the surprise on Derek’s face too because it’s stupid. It’s downright ridiculous for someone as amazing as Derek to have any doubts at all about his own dateability, regardless of his orientation.

“Derek, I like you. I like you a _lot,_ and I have for a long time. This—” Stiles tugs at Derek’s shirt like Derek had done earlier. “—doesn’t change that in the least.”

Derek takes Stiles’ hand before he can pull away. He holds it against his chest, heart beating steadily against Stiles’ palm. “I like you too. I have for a while.”

Stiles is helpless to fight the smile that overtakes his face. He can’t be blamed for it, though, not when those words are the sweetest he’s ever heard. He definitely owes Scott two favors after this, maybe as many as five. Hell, Stiles might even be willing to forgive Carrie for all the trouble she caused if _this_ is what he gets out of it, Derek smiling softly at him and literally holding his hand.

Something about it nags at him, though.

“You never said anything,” he says. “Is this why? You were afraid that I wouldn’t want to date you because you’re ace?”

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

The mere thought that anyone could be assholeish enough to give Derek up over something like that—to _hurt_ him because of it—makes Stiles’ insides burn with mingled rage and protectiveness. But also:

“I thought you said this was a new development.”

Has Derek been seeing someone, or trying to, without the pack noticing? Obviously he’s been spending a lot of time at community meetups, if he’s involved enough to be part of the staff at Pride, and the pack hadn’t realized _that._

Derek shakes his head, though. “It is. But I wasn’t not ace before because I didn’t have the term for it. Before, it was just…” He shifts their hands around so that he can thread their fingers together, the back of Stiles’ hand still held against his chest. “It was going along with whatever my partner wanted because, if I didn’t, then there was something wrong with me. And when I couldn’t go along with it anymore, then it was over, and it was my fault because I didn’t love them enough.”

“That’s bullshit,” Stiles spits out. “Anyone who’s ever told you that deserves to be drawn and quartered and then put through a woodchipper. _Fuck_ those people.”

Derek lets out a bemused laugh, a mildly horrified look on his face even as he tightens his hold on Stiles’ hand. Stiles squeezes back and shifts in closer to make absolutely sure that Derek looks him in the eye. He does, eyelashes glittering with purple, lips parted just a little bit. His breath is warm against Stiles’ cheek.

“Derek, I don’t give a damn whether we have sex or not,” Stiles says into the space between them. “I mean, would I be thrilled to get all up on that? Absolutely! You’re practically the personification of carnal beauty and it would be an honor to be intimate with you like that. But do you know what else you are?”

Derek shakes his head. Stiles lays his free hand along the line of Derek’s jaw, thumb coming up to brush along his cheekbone, and Derek leans into the touch.

“You’re brave,” Stiles tells him. “You’re smart. You’re sweet and loyal. You’re a laugh riot when you’re in the right mood.”

Derek snorts and Stiles disentangles their hands so he can cup his face properly.

“You are worth so much more than your sex appeal,” he says. “And I would be a damn fool to think otherwise, just like those other dickhead partners of yours were. Derek, there is so much to love about you that has nothing to do with sex. Besides,” he adds with a growing smirk. “I made it through seventeen years without sex just fine. My left hand has not stopped working in the meantime, so I’m pretty sure I could survive seventeen more.”

He waggles the aforementioned left hand in Derek’s face. Derek rolls his eyes expansively and slaps it out of the air with a groan. Stiles just laughs, though, and the laugh fades into a smile he can feel all the way down to his toes when Derek draws him in close and wraps an arm around his waist. Their foreheads come together and Stiles doesn’t even care that he’s probably getting some of Derek’s glitter in his own hair because this is exactly where he wants to be for as long as he can manage.

“So, now that that’s out of the way,” he says, “can I kiss you? I know that some aces aren’t up on the kissing thing, so it’s okay if that’s not something you want to—”

Derek cuts across him with, “I definitely want to kiss you.”

“Oh, thank god.”

It might be the single greatest kiss of Stiles’ life. He might also be a little bit biased, admittedly, but he can’t bring himself to be objective when he’s finally got Derek Hale in his arms, smiling against his lips like he might be biased in Stiles’ favor too.

Someone whistles at them. Stiles flips them off over Derek’s shoulder without breaking stride, but only gets an even louder whistle in return. And a very telling _howl_ that he definitely recognizes. He pulls back with the greatest regret to find Erica, Lydia, and Jackson all watching them, a smirk on every one of their faces.

“Oh, hey,” Stiles says faintly, trying to pretend that his face isn’t on _fire._ “I, uh, thought you guys left.”

“No, Isaac left,” Erica reminds him. “With Scott.”

Jackson makes a face.“Three guesses what they’re doing.”

“And I’ll give you a hint,” Lydia says with relish. “It’s probably exactly what _you_ were doing.”

Stiles opens his mouth to complain—possibly about how he does not want to think about his bro in any sort of compromising positions, thank you very much, or possibly about what a bunch of chucklefucks his friends are—but Derek beats him to it. Only, Derek doesn’t complain. He doesn’t even loosen his hold on Stiles’ waist.

He just says: “Then I’m happy for them.”

Lydia’s sharp-eyed, gossip-thirsty expression softens in an instant. Jackson makes an even more disgusted face because he’s allergic to happiness in others, which earns him an elbow in the ribs from Lydia. Erica, for her part, _sighs_ like it’s a chore for her to pass over such a prime opportunity for teasing, but one more look at the two of them all tangled up in each other is enough to make her relent without further mockery.

“Fine,” she grumps. “We’ll leave you alone so you can be cute and shit. Boyd gets off work soon anyway.” The smile returns to her red lips, as mischievous as ever. “Just know that you’re not getting out of it forever. This is only a grace period before the inquisition.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Stiles barks out. “Understood.”

He considers snapping a salute, but that would require letting go of Derek and he’s not ready for that yet. Luckily, Derek doesn’t seem to be either, because neither of them moves a muscle until after Lydia has sent them both a warm smile and dragged the other two off by the ears. And even when they do unfreeze, it’s just so Derek can press another soft kiss to his lips.

“They’re going to be insufferable,” Stiles sighs, preemptively worn out just thinking about it. “We might have to flee the country.”

It’s not unappealing prospect, honestly, jetting off somewhere sunny and tropical, just him and Derek and no nosy werewolf friends to get all up in their business. Maybe Malibu, or Cancun. Or maybe it’s too soon, realistically, for them to start planning vacation trips together. Even if Stiles doesn’t have trouble imagining it. He can imagine planning a lot of things for the two of them, a whole future’s worth of possibilities laid out all the way to the horizon.

“You mean, _Erica’s_ going to be insufferable,” Derek corrects him, completely unaware of the unbelievably sappy direction Stiles’ thoughts had taken. “Until we can get Scott to talk her down, of course.”

Stiles hums contemplatively. “Yeah. He’ll do that thing with the face. Works every time.”

“On pack members _and_ on random lizards hiding in drag queen wigs.”

Stiles pulls back with a scandalized gasp, hand over his heart. “That was not just some random lizard,” he protests. “Jimmy is, in fact, a dear friend.”

“Oh, he is, is he?” Derek asks flatly.

“That’s right. I am indebted to that scaly bastard. He’s practically family!”

Derek’s eyebrow goes up. “Indebted?”

“Yep.” Stiles dives back in for one more kiss that didn’t linger half as long as he wanted it to. “If it weren’t for him, we might never have ended up here,” he says. “I think that earns him some credit, don’t you?”

Derek’s smile is slow-spreading and infinitely soft. “Maybe a little.”

As tempting as it is to stay right here and continue staring into Derek’s eyes like the lovesick idiot he is, the afternoon light is starting to dim into evening. A few of the booths nearby are packing up and it won’t be long before people start getting shooed off the streets and into the clubs instead.

Stiles takes Derek’s hand and begins tugging him along.

“Come on,” he says. “We’ve still got some time. Let’s go see if that twerking contest is still going on.”

Derek rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t put up any resistance, following easily in Stiles’ wake as he wends his way through the thinning crowd.

“If it’s not, we can always go find Ritzy and her friends,” he offers innocently. “Just be careful of the crazy headpieces. You never know what’s hiding in those things.”

Stiles laughs until Derek kisses the sound out of his mouth. He doesn’t even care that they miss the last round of the twerking contest. There’s always next year’s Pride.

**Author's Note:**

> [also on tumblr](http://clotpolesonly.tumblr.com/post/180833126061/magic-and-drag-queens-and-lizards-oh-my)


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